


Date Night With Olaf

by Andromedanewton



Series: Anita and Edward (my canon divergence) [11]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7747393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromedanewton/pseuds/Andromedanewton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anita makes her escape from Edward Mark II, and guess who she bumps into?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date Night With Olaf

**Author's Note:**

> As the title suggests, yep, not a good thing. This chapter contains violence/blood.
> 
> Reminder, this is part of a bigger work so if you haven't read the other parts, go back! Back to part one! It's worth it! Trust me!

I didn't want to make any sudden moves, not yet, but I wanted to check, to be sure. 'You want a sip? As we take it the same?' It was a lie, he took his coffee black and neat, I liked mine loaded, and Edward knew that.  
'Sure.' He took the cup I offered him and as it reached his lips I slapped both hands on either side of the cardboard cup, firing the lid off, showering him with scalding coffee and he screamed but I had already set off running, away from the diner and into the minimart parking lot next door, dodging behind a pickup truck, drawing my Browning and throwing myself on the floor to roll under the vehicle before stilling myself, listening carefully while hoping the truck's owner was doing a big shop. I heard rapid footsteps and knew he was approaching, but I wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't done anything to provoke me, I had attacked him, having someone call the authorities would only get me blamed. Even firing the gun would draw too much attention. No, I had to try something else. I drew the dagger from my right wrist sheath and waited until I saw him run by the car, missing me underneath it and I rolled out the other side, checked he was some way away and I ran. I hit the road at a fair pace and a glance back showed me he had seen me and given chase. I spotted an alleyway between buildings and darted into it, putting up the Browning and crouching just inside against the wall from the way we came, knife turned so it stuck out the side of my hand. He couldn't have failed to see me run in here, I was just hoping he would come rushing in and not stop and edge around the corner, which was what I would do. Shit. He was a trained assassin, unless I had really pissed him off enough that he wasn't thinking rationally he wouldn't just rush in.  
Sure enough the footfalls slowed and stopped but thankfully I was able to see his shadow on the sidewalk. He moved slowly towards me and I raised the knife to my chest, ready to stab him, around the kneecap, I hoped.  
I watched and waited, my heart so loud I was glad this guy was human as a were or vamp would have heard it, smelt the blood coursing through my veins too fast. If I could incapacitate him and drag him into the alley then I could go, probably after finishing him off. Edward always told me never to leave an enemy at my back and I agreed with him.  
The shadow moved as the man stepped forward and I stabbed at his leg with the knife, catching him through his calf, the sharp blade sliding easily through his pants and flesh alike and I yanked it backwards as hard as I could, tearing out as much flesh as I was able as I pulled the knife back out. He screamed and I wondered how much training he had actually had as I didn't think Edward would ever scream like that, even under the greatest of torture, and he fell forward which gave me the opportunity to spring to my feet and kick the gun out of his hand, following up with a punch to his jaw as he turned towards me. It wasn't enough to knock him out but it definitely threw him. I was able to grab the back of his shirt and half throw half drag him into the alley. I hit him again as he started to yell at me and fight back, this time aiming beyond his head and I managed to hit him just right so his head snapped back and hit the concrete floor, his eyes rolling back and his body going limp.  
I stood and looked down at him, my right hand covered in blood. He looked like a modified version of Edward, only his skin was now blistered where I had thrown my coffee at him, and it made it easier to differentiate, to do what I was about to do so much easier. I dragged him as far into the alley as I could, wishing I was strong enough to lift him into a dumpster, but accepting I couldn’t and I caught my breath as I looked down, contemplating what I had to do. I didn’t relish it, I knew I couldn’t use the gun, it was too loud, which left the knife, and that was…messy. I didn’t want to just slit a vein and let him bleed out; it was a long and painful way to go, which left me with one definite option I knew would work. I swallowed, accepted what I had to do, and crouched over his torso with my knife in my hand.  
‘What are you doing, little Anita?’ Olaf’s voice made me jump so badly I fell to the side, holding my knife in front of me, for what good it would do.  
‘Jesus, Olaf, don’t sneak up on me, I’m armed!’ I snapped at him but he was unfazed and continued to stare down at me, but his face held curiosity now, his eyes wide and pupils dilated.  
‘Who do you have there?’ He came towards me with a grace that belied his size, with his arms beside his as though to show he meant me no harm.  
‘Edward’s doppelgänger.’ I let him see the man on the floor, now beside rather than under me. ‘Made a try for me. Lend me your knife.’  
He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘What will you do with it?’  
I gave him a hard look. ‘Kill him. I could do it with this but it’ll take longer. I just need this over with.’  
‘I will help, if you use the smaller knife.’  
I eyed him carefully. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to help, or watch, but his knife would make quicker work of it. ‘I don’t need actual help, I need a bigger knife. You can help by loaning it to me.’  
‘But you will allow me to watch?’  
‘At a distance.’  
He nodded once and took a step back, drawing the blade that was almost as long as my leg slowly before offering it to me, hilt first.  
‘Thanks.’ I reached out and took it, leaning forward as I did so but he didn’t let go, his hands on the blade so if I pulled I’d cut him. ‘Stand against the wall, you’ll get a better view.’ I said quietly and he finally released it and moved where I suggested, which meant I could watch him too, not have to worry about him behind me.  
I rolled up my coat sleeves then pulled up the mans shirt and checked he didn’t have on any body armour before standing, straddling his torso and angling the sword, because to me that’s what it was, under his ribcage at his heart. I took a breath and let it out as I pushed, the blade so sharp it slid quicker than I expected and it slipped easily into his flesh, his body spasming as I did so, blood bubbling up and out of the wound I caused. Part of me was horrified, that I could do this to another person, but another part knew it was the best thing to do, that this man would take me, maybe kill me if he had the chance, and I wasn’t willing to risk it. I pushed until I hit bone, probably his ribcage, possibly his spine, but I knew I had hit what I needed to, I could feel the life leave him as he stopped being a him and became an it. A corpse. A body.  
‘Check the heart is pierced.’ Olaf suggested and I looked up at him to find him eyeing me with something close to lust in his eyes. This was not good.  
‘He’s dead, I can feel it.’  
‘Like this.’ He approached me and I couldn’t get the blade free to defend myself, couldn’t reach any weapons as his enormous hands encircled mine, his body at my back. He drew the knife down in our hands, slicing down to his abdomen and more fluids spread from the wound, oozing and flowing like a river bursting its banks. And it smelled, oh Lord did it smell, and I was glad I didn’t retch, didn’t heave, but bile burned my throat in warning. ‘Now we check.’ Olaf crouched and brought me with him, putting me so close to the wound that one slip and I would be sitting in it. He pulled the knife from the body and laid it beside us carefully as though it were precious to him and guided my hands towards the wound. I did not want to be deep in blood with Olaf, didn’t want to be this close to him, but I didn’t see what choice I had other than to regain control of the situation.  
‘I can do it.’ I pulled out of his weird embrace and moved to one side. I probed the wound, the flesh and blood still warm, until I was almost in it up to my elbows, all the while scowling at Olaf, not liking the way he was watching me, his eyes going from my face to my hands with deep interest. ‘Pierced then dragged through. It’s nearly in two halves. Left upper chamber as the starting point, if I had to guess.’  
His hands were suddenly in the wound with mine, keenly digging around my own and lacing our fingers so we felt the wound together. ‘You have done this before.’ He looked up at me and it was a scary look, different to the hate filled glare from before, but just as frightening.  
‘I’ve removed hearts before. Never split one in two.’ He nodded, not moving from holding me despite me pulling on my arms to get loose, to get out, anything to get me away. ‘Would you toss the body in the dumpster so we can get back?’  
‘You now wish my help.’ He stated.  
‘No, I’ll leave the body right here, I don’t care, but I’d rather not leave it quite so blatantly on display.’  
‘Güt.’ He replied in german but still didn’t move.  
‘You’re from Hapsburg.’ I tried to distract him with what I thought I knew about him. I was reward with a small frown that had his bushy brows meet.  
‘You know Hapsburg?’  
‘Had an uncle from there, dad’s side. Accent was about the same.’  
‘And what else have you observed about me, Anita?’ There was something in the way he said my name that made me want to shudder, but I resisted, I had a feeling that would only have made things worse.  
‘That you’re as afraid of Edward as I am and if we don’t head back soon he’s going to hit up the GPS buttons we have and if he finds us like this he’s going to be pretty pissed.’  
His lips twitched, the closest to a smile I thought he may ever get, and his hands drew mine painfully slowly out of the corpse. We were both bloody and would never get far down the street looking like this. ‘You fear Edward in a different way than I do.’  
‘Fear is fear.’ I said, finally able to take my hands back and stand. ‘Be stupid not to fear him, one way or another.  
‘You fear him and trust him.’  
‘We have a weird dynamic.’ I shrugged as he got to his feet and I stepped back further, out of arms reach as he effortlessly lifted the body and threw it in the nearest dumpster before cleaning his knife on some nearby sheets of newspaper and re-sheathing it, then wiping his hands and arms on the inside of his duster coat.  
‘You may use my coat, if you wish.’ He offered me the tail of his coat and I paused. I didn’t want to be in grabbing distance of him but I also didn’t want to ruin my coat. I wish I’d wiped my hands on the dead guy’s clothes now.  
‘Uh, sure. But guess what? Still don’t trust you for shit, so if you could take it off?’  
His eyes flared for a second and I thought the anger was coming back but he simply removed the coat and held it out to me, revealing his black dress shirt and double shoulder rig underneath.  
‘Thanks. You going to put this back on, because those guns are going to be a bigger giveaway than the blood.’  
‘Blood does not bother me.’  
I wiped my hands and arms as best I could. ‘Doesn’t bother me either but it’s a bitch to explain to a dry cleaner.’  
‘You need to tip bigger.’  
‘Huh.’ I said, handing him back his coat. I wasn’t sure what to say about that, whoever Olaf’s dry cleaner was was probably loaded. ‘Let’s head back.’  
‘Is there a rush?’ He took a step towards me and I stepped towards the mouth of the alley matching him.  
‘Edward will be looking. I don’t like to keep him waiting.’  
‘After you.’ He held his hand out towards the way out and I didn’t want him at my back.  
‘How about together?’  
He nodded and joined me, but kept some space between us and I managed not to flinch away, not to step further to the side, standing my ground. We were forced to walk closer together when we were on the sidewalk again but I had the road on my side so I could always jump into traffic if things got that bad. It may not have been the ideal plan but I liked my chances with a car better than with Olaf. He had flipped since he found me in the alley, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not. I decided to just get back and not initiate conversation.  
We were a block from the motel when Edward rounded the corner with his phone in his hand, Bernardo beside him. He looked at me, and it wasn’t a happy look, I sort of shrugged as he put his phone away, no doubt he had been tracking me, and he took Olaf’s place at my side with Bernardo and the bigger man in front.  
‘We might have been made.’ I said as we walked.  
‘Made?’ He frowned at me.  
‘Spotted. Thought made was the right phrase. Whatever it is, your double was here.’  
‘What?’ He stopped me with a hand on my arm. ‘Where? What happened?’  
‘I threw coffee in his face and ran.’  
‘That is not all you did.’ Olaf sounded amused and it earned him surprised looks from the other two men.  
‘What does he mean?’  
‘He means I killed him.’  
‘He’s dead? You’re sure?’  
‘She is very sure.’ Olaf replied and Edward glared at me, a steely gaze that once upon a time had me squirming under its scrutiny, but not any more.  
‘What does he mean?’  
‘He means he watched. He knows he’s dead, so do I. We still have to consider we might be compromised, if he reported back already.’  
‘Go on ahead, I need to talk to Anita alone.’ Edward instructed without taking his eyes off me.  
‘I would like to hear what you have to say.’ Olaf had turned to face us, as had Bernardo, but the bigger man’s eyes were all for me.  
‘I don’t give a fuck, get back to the motel. We go in tonight, we don’t give him another chance to escape.’ There must have been something in the look he gave them as they moved off without another word and once they were out of sight he turned back to me. ‘Please tell me you didn’t just give Olaf his equivalent of a floor show?’  
I pulled a face. ‘More an audience participation thing.’  
He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘What. Happened?’ He made each word a sentence on its own to make his point. So I told him. I made sure he knew I wasn’t exactly a willing participant but that it had happened and I couldn’t change it, wished I could but couldn’t. ‘You have no idea what you have just done.’  
‘I have a pretty fair idea of what I just fucking did!’ I showed him the blood up my fingernails. ‘And Olaf fucking liked it. He enjoyed watching me, hell he even loaned me his coat to wipe my hands on! You think I’d have done it that way if I had a choice?’  
‘You should have run, from them both, you should have found me.’  
'I don't need a knight in shining armour! I've done what I've done and now I have to deal with it, whatever that might be.'  
He gave me a hard state but I stared right back, my anger at everything helping. Once upon a time I had flinched at Edward's stare but I had been staring down scarier things than him since I last saw him and I wouldn't give just to give him the satisfaction. In the end he growled in frustration.  
'Fine! We'll deal with it!''  
'Damn right we will.'  
'You're impossible!' He waved a finger at me.  
'You say that like you just figured that out.'  
'You're a hard woman to love.' He said, but he was still frowning and the face didn't go with the words, with what he said.  
'You know, that's the second time you've used that word.'  
'What?' He didn't seem to understand what I meant and I wondered if he even remembered telling Donna he was in love with me.  
'The 'L' word. We need to be on the same page as one another and I can't start that now while we're on a mission. I need us to work this out when the stakes aren't so high and we're aren't hiding what we are.'  
'And what are we?' His voice was quiet now but the frown had softened, as though he realised he had confessed his feelings when he didn't mean to.  
'That's a good question.' I replied and set off back towards the motel, knowing he would follow.


End file.
